Is it racist for me to point out that as Black Americans are the trendsetters in many other areas of American life–with rap culture, music, and clothing dominating American society–they are also the trendsetters in the breakdown of the American family? Well, racist or not, the fact is that kids born out of wedlock was a dominant feature of Black America before it became so prevalent in White America. Black children being raised by their grandparents–primarily their grandmothers–or aunts was also prevalent in Black America. And, now, that trend, too, is spreading throughout the culture, with 3.1 million American kids living without a biological parent in their household.

Yes, the fact that more and more kids are being raised by grandparents isn’t just because of the influence of Black rap and hip-hop culture on White America. It’s also a product of feminist, selfish women and slacker guys who’ve been taught by feminist, selfish moms never to grow up and how not to be men. They were given birth to by “best friend” sperm and egg donors who refuse to act like parents. And they don’t know how to function as responsible adults caring for their progeny. And now we see the unhealthy results. There is also the embrace by the right, which used to condemn this sad American social phenomenon. Now, though, with Todd Palin admittedly having raising his illegitimate grandson, Tripp, for a couple of years, the “grandfamily” is now embraced by blind conservatives with no critical thinking skills or principles.

And it’s unhealthy. Aging grandparents usually don’t have the stamina or demeanor to be disciplinarians and active parents to their grandkids. And they simply don’t have the life expectancy or health, on average. Take Annabel Baird:

Four months of an empty nest were all that Annabel and John Baird had before their Highland Village, Texas, home wasn’t so empty anymore.

But unlike many families today, it wasn’t their adult children returning home or elderly parents moving in. It was their granddaughter Catie, just 10 months old when the Bairds’ son and his wife asked them to take her while they were in the midst of a divorce. She’s been there ever since. Catie, now 15, calls her grandmother “Mom.”

John died in 2007. Annabel Baird, 65, now lives with Catie in Richardson, a Dallas suburb. “Our son and his wife were unable to care for this baby. They came to us and asked us if we would take temporary custody. We said no but would take permanent custody and back out when they demonstrated their ability to care for this child,” she says. “That never happened.”

The Bairds’ experience is like so many grandparents today. Although it’s a family dynamic filled with complexities, more grandparents than ever are finding themselves in the throes of parenthood yet again. Census data released last month found that 3.1 million children in the USA were living without a parent present in the household in 2009. Of those, 59% lived with grandparents.

If you think this is good for America, think again.

“I wanted to be Grandma. You know, the kids come over and you treat them special and then you turn them home to their mother or father,” says Joyce Sylvia, 69, of Providence. “That’s what I had planned.”

Instead, she ended up adopting two granddaughters when they were in elementary school. Now they’re 12 and 15. . . .

“Some grandmothers are so downtrodden because this is devastating. Sixty is not when you want to be taking care of kids.”

Do you really think a nearly 70-year-old grandmother can stand up to two teenagers as the years continue and she gets older? Is this in the best interests of America’s future? No.

Experts say they have nagging fears and often are “hyper-vigilant,” Cox says. “They don’t want this child to go wrong. They worry so about what happened to their own child.”

They also worry about the passing years. “There’s no guarantee that they’re going to be there for that child,” says Gregory Smith, a gerontologist and developmental psychologist at Kent State University in Ohio. . . .

Carol Musil, a professor in the School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, has seen a heavy load of worries among the grandparents she has been studying since 1996.

“It’s this magnified multi-generational parenting. They’re worrying about two generations of kids.”

Much of the research conducted in the past 10 years has focused on the health and well-being of grandparents engaged in child-rearing.

“Grandparents, in general, have more physical disability and depression than their peers not raising grandkids,” says Esme Fuller-Thomson, a professor of social work at the University of Toronto.

Who would give up raising their own children? Very selfish, inhumane people and avowed slackers, that’s who. These aren’t men and women. They are children in adult bodies.

This is a disaster wrought by feminism, the Sixties hippies and their sexual revolution, and decades of feminizing men. Sorry, but people at high risk for dementia and brittle bones should not be raising kids.

46 Responses

When does the whole thing bottom out? I mean, there’s less and less responsible adults even willing to take the kids of the current generation. Will the current irresponsible twits abandoning their kids eventually “grow up” and be willing to take their irresponsible kids’ spawn (i.e. their grandkids) in and raise them? I have to wonder.

Of course so many of these kids are the product of laziness, stupidity, one night stands, no birth control…who cares…the state will pay for the kid, right? Or your kid can have an “accident” like Casey Anthony. Then you can go back to partying like it’s 1999.

DS, I’d rather you write about this GREAT post than the Nutter Norwegian. Danke. (Thanks!)

DS will write about what she wants when she wants but I have to say I LOVE when she does a post like this because I agree so strongly with her point of view and I WISH other people wrote or spoke about such important things more frequently.

I will NEVER ease and agree with the silly lemmings who go with the flow. Having kids out-of-wedlock hurts those kids and it is not cool and dopes who do it NEED to be called on the carpet for it. I am sick of them and the pain and destruction they cause.

And I bet EVERYONE has a family member who has done such a horrible thing and then has to attempt to clean up the mess. I know I do!!!

This is DS’ key sentence in this thread…

“This is a disaster wrought by feminism, the Sixties hippies and their sexual revolution, and decades of feminizing men.”

And no, DS, you’re not racist. Those who ignore the problem and/or think the black community can’t do better than this ARE. I know I always say I don’t like the “baby mama” distinction from rich or poor. It’s all BAD. Halle Berry is Casey Anthony is any selfish fool who has a baby out-of-wedlock and DOESN’T put the child up for adoption.

And that is news to me about Todd Palin bringing up grandbaby. I never heard of that because all I hear is a fawning Conservatives embracing that idiot Bristol Palin. She’s a fraud and a freak and the WORST role-model for “baby mamas”. How pathetic! And bravo to DS because she is the ONLY one who has the guts to take the Palins to task on this and she always points out the hypocritical, fawning Conservative media.

The grandparents are probably the products of the 1960’s who didn’t have responsibility. Nothing like passing this quality to the next generation, then to the next,…

Perhaps this is another reason for the left to say that abortion is a “viable option if you don’t want the government to take care of the kids”. Nice how the left take all self-responsibility away from people, which makes these people more controllable by the government. Hence, Hillary Clinton’s socialist utopia: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. The problem, the “village” (i.e., the government) is taking the wealth from the villagers so that it can raise the children into “village” idiots.

Jonathathan,
Your stats are way off.There is no way that 80-90% of Black children are born out of wedlock.It is no doubt high and higher than it was 50 years ago(the 1960 stat that you sited),but just because you want it to be almost all,doesn’t make it so.

And for Debbie’s information,Blacks have contributed much,much more than rap music,and urban dress style to the world.They have contributed Blues and Jazz,that were the basis for rock and roll.They have contributed the non violent civil rights movement(Dr.King was a student of Ghandi) that has influenced the entire world,from Poland to South Africa.

And last but not least,yes it’s racist to “blame”modern white illigitimacy rates on African-Americans.There’s is a result of slavery,when the white masters sold husbands from wives and children too,making it impossible to maintain a normal family structure.And after slavery with the vicious racism that prevented the Black from holding down a decent job,the problem of the runaway father continued.

You seem to forget that Black people were denied life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness that all whites took for granted,until the 60’s and 70’s.

All I’m trying to point out is that there is a lot more to the story than lying stats and whites aping blacks.Whites have always been able to choose how they wanted to live,whereas until very recently, Blacks have lived lives that the white man imposed upon them.

You are WRONG…but I see you want to be wrong. Stupid is no way to go through life.

The real stat is 71% for black Americans. That’s the truth, Ruth.

And STOP making excuses. You’re racist by saying that black Americans are NOT capable at living great, constructive lives. Stop being racist. In America, we ALL have a chance to get the very best.

And if you think I am wrong, look at how well some people from other countries have done here in America by attaining the American Dream. These PEOPLE are legal and had the guts to try in the greatest country on Earth. It makes American losers how don’t have what they have attained look badly.

So take your racist BS and shove it. Then pick up a book. You got a lot of catching up to do.

I’m sorry but the argument that Slavery & Jim Crow is the cause of the epidemic of fatherless black households is not supported by the facts. If what you say was true, then the rate of fatherless black household would have been very high 50 years ago and dropped as equality was achieved are at least stayed the same.

Yes the data shows that the rate has tripled almost exactly coinciding with the passage of the The Great Society’s new welfare benefits and the end of no-fault divorce.

I think that at this point that you can’t even argue that the government’s well-meaning but misguided programs caused much of this mess. Personally I think the money should be slowly shifted to education reform in the black community as well as jobs programs to help people get a good job (unemployment for black males is so high that it is a disgrace).

Jon, may I add that in a lot of states, when grandparents or aunts take the kids, the state pays them to be foster parents. Yes, just another example of welfare-type benefits enabling the breakdown of the American family. I can’t tell you how many black women I have worked with over the years who were only in their 30’s but were raising their grandkids – and being paid by the state to do so as long as they didn’t legally adopt them. Now we have the white women doing it too. And nobody is supposed to mention how shameful it is to have young single women in their teens and 20’s getting pregnant and having kids they cannot afford to raise financially or with regard to maturity. In the meantime, married people who want to adopt have to go to China or Russia or Serbia to get kids because young women would rather abort, live in poverty or stick Grandma with the kid than give a child up for adoption. Selfish, selfish, selfish.

Excellent article Debbie, but in my experience the one thing that mainly causes this is DRUGS. I know several people that this has happened to. One of their kids and their spouse or “spouse” get into drugs or becomes a drunk, they drop the kids off to be babysat and they disappear for awhile to “get in touch with themselves”.

Grandma & grandpa become overnight Mom & Dad. As one of these poor folks put it to me “what can I do–my kid is a bum, these kids have no where to go and no one else to turn to and I can’t put them out on the street or in foster homes where they will be abused”.

If a son of mine told me that, I would have agreed AFTER castrating him. (Different if he’s dying of cancer, or something of that nature, of course—I’m talking about selfish a-hole syndrome.) That would be his choice, and I would insist on a legal contract.

It is considered inappropriate to mention sterilization these days, but back in the early part of the last century, it was accepted internationally by many of the leading thinkers of the time, although there were some abuses. Even 50 years ago, some public aide was conditioned on accepting sterilization. It certainly saved the taxpayers money.

A big problem in our society now is that there is no “right” and “wrong.” We aren’t allowed to judge and say that something is correct or incorrect, lest we hurt someone’s feelings. As a result, we are now seeing many of the consequences of our less judgmental society- increased crime, more people on welfare, and the breakdown of the family unit with children being born out of wedlock. In the past there was shame associated with having a child and not being married. Now, it’s glorified by Hollywood and others who we purportedly look up to. It’s a sad result and it’s only going to get worse.

Since DS is perfect and has had many children who are also perfect we should all raptly listen to her ranting about the worthless Palins and other bums who refuse to live by DS’s so perfect parenting manual. Oh, she hasn’t written one you say? I’m sure “Parenting for Dummies” by DS will be out soon.I seem to remember something about walking a mile in another man’s huarachi’s but maybe DS hasn’t heard. I’m sure nothing untoward has ever happened in your family even if it wasn’t of your making. It is great to strive to never make a mistake but don’t be surprised when you do. You are entitled to your opinion (you know what they say about opinions…mine is just as good as yours) and you’re undoubtedly right about the causes. But what’s the cure?

Who is talking about being perfect? Is it right for an able bodied adult to have a child, and then “dump” that child with his or her parents permanently? Are you showing empathy for people who are perpetual children and leave messes that not only grandparents, but the government has to pick up? If complaining about that is being “Little Miss Perfect” to you, your standards are beneath septic. Would you like to relate how you have unburdened yourself at the expense of others? From your defensive attitude, I suspect that a nerve has been struck.

I have done some criminal law work. Every single defendant, save one, was the product of a single mother or grandmother. Everytime I pay taxes, I am paying for jerkoffs like you who procreate without sense or reason. Everytime someone gets a federal check because his or her whorish mother could not keep their legs crossed (like maybe your mama), I pay for it.

As for the Palins, well, they are trash elevated by television cameras and $$$. But as for you, you are not famous, just stupid.

Nice try Bilbo. Getting angry at the messenger (DS) is soooo stupid. Don’t you want to be smarter than that?

So take your anger OFF of DS. Why are you putting perfection into the equation?

DS is NOT perfect, but she is perfectly capable of seeing the TRUTH and cause and affect of a situation. Because of her lifestyle, she is NOT afraid to see what the truth is and because of her lifestyle she will NOT make the crap choices all these bastard factories make. And because of her morals and values, the chance of her being so disgustingly selfish and immoral make her almost EXEMPT from making such a gross shi**y choice.

So quit obfuscating the issue and getting angry at someone strong enough to see the truth…and to say something about it. Your anger is misplaced and should be put on the selfish gits effing up this society.

Either that or you’re just drowning in sour grapes because you yourself have contributed to the problem.

BB, you need to improve your reading comprehension ‘skills.’ Your pseudo-intellectualism doesn’t hide fact that you are unable to see that Debbie blames feminism for much of this. Freeing our society from feminism would go a long way towards solving these problems.

And your opinion is not as good as Debbie’s. That’s the trouble with postmodernism and relativism — they are the basis of multiculturalism; everything is equal. No, it isn’t. Some people are smarter than others, and some opinions are better than others.

i’m 50 and grew up in the 60s. my bff across the street. bobby curley, and his brother timmy were living with their grandparents and raised by them. bobby’s mother also had two more boys by another father, another boy with another father and another girl with yet another guy. i don’t think she ever was married. anyway, my pals across the street were raised in a very strict environment and today are both responsible and successful people. as for his other siblings of various parentage, i saw them sporadically but understand they are all responsible, employed, married, upright citizens, etc.

having said all that, i’m not disputing a word of debbie’s position. i think the only difference in my example was both strict grandparents and society in general was less tolerant of single motherhood and the rest of my friends’ siblings never got the message it was ok to become losers.

I remember talking to a lib I worked with in the USAF years back about these statistics. He tried to deflect it by spouting that you can say anything with stats slanted one way or the other. It shows years later that by not addressing the problem and taking responsibility for their actions, the problem has grown much larger and spread to other areas of the society. It’s helped by a complicit media that takes it’s orders from the rainbow coalition and it’s minions.

There is another twist on the reason why the grandparents are raising the children nowdays. Some of these reasons do not have to do with the father being a deadbeat. In the last few decades it has become hip and popular for the wife to kick the husband out of the house, divorce him and get custody of the kids once the novelty wears off the marriage or there are problems in the marriage that the wife would rather not bother to try to work out. Divorce has become hip and trendy, rather than a shameful stigma like it used to be in our parents and grandparents generation. Divorced women like to get free babysitting services from grandma while they work, look for work, shop, or spend time with or look for, the new boyfriend.
Often, I suspect that these divorced mothers are getting money from thier ex husbands for child care, and leaving the kids with grandma, other relatives, friends, or leaving them alone in the house. They often divorce a man that has a “good” job (this gravy train is being de railed due to the crappy economy) and move in a younger boyfriend who doesn’t work. Many of these divorced husbands would do anything to get thier families back, but they have no choice in the matter.

Hi Debbie. I sense your reluctance to write about it, but the NFL season is upon us and your so called Lions will again be fielding a team. In fact I am considering attending their open try outs. I too can run slowly, miss blocks, miss tackles, fumble, and throw the ball to the wrong team, which apparently the Lions prefer. I’ll just need Kosher (deli style) meals and a Yiddish jargon interpreter for my fellow footballers. Also Debbie you can be my own full service Jewish cheerleader.

Good point RT. My ex used my $$$ for a new car with the hot rod package while I drove a plain old small pick up truck. Then she used my money to bribe the kid with b.s. gifts that impress youngsters. Her mom watched him when she worked a little on the side and partied like a rock star.

FIRST: Debbie has done a good post just by stating the obvious. Sure, there are those throwaway kids raised by single-parent families and grandparents that grow up to be Einsteins and fine upstanding productive citizens, but for the most part, you’re left with an amoral, immature generation screaming out for entitlements, just because they feel like they’re entitled to something more than the privilege of being above ground rather than below.

SECOND: at the risk of sounding white-supremacist, wrt Black families, culture, etc, would it be safe to say that Phillippe Rushton can finally be vindicated? (Google him. Please. And thank you.)

THIRD: the current generation of sperm slingers and baby factories indicate an apparent lack of morality and discipline. No civilized society could function properly, let alone survive without these 2 elements. Had this kind of behaviour (at this level and severity) existed before WWII, we would’ve been all singing the “Horst Wessel Lied” (aka “Die Fahne Hoch”, for all you history aficionados) and a good number of posters (including MOI) would never exist.

FIFTH: see FOURTH – have we raised a generation of junkies and pervs? I never claimed to have lived my life right, but seeing the wreckage left in my wake I realised that immediate gratification leads to self indulgence and alienation. It used to be that there would be some men who were considered “cads” while most women would pride themselves to be virtuous. Nowadays, many people, if not most, simply don’t give a fuck about cause and effect. They would simply do it, fall down, pick themselves up then do it some more with a vengeance. That’s wrong, given these days. If the so-called “End Times” were to arrive this week, I’d probably be screaming “Bring it on, Motherfucker!” But I’d also see a whole crowd of people heading to the nearest exit, only to find out that there would be no escape, and that they would lack the tools to deal with the aftermath. This is exactly what happened after 9-11: absolutely nobody had a clue what to do and how to do it. Gotta thank W for the great leadership all this time.

SIXTH: if you really want to get to the roots of this decay – and this may be a good suggestion to DS – go back to the 50s. War weary, yet prosperous, the benefits and blessings of a free (liberal-democratic) society probably made some people take them for granted, as if it was like some form of given. An entitlement. And these were probably the same people who would wind up stirring the pot in the 60s. One thing leads to another? I may be wrong, but then again I’m no expert on civilization.

FINALLY: to Bilbobaggins – sobriety may not be the cure, but it’s a start. Take it from me.

Your post bring up something that I – along with others who are regulars on this blog – know too well.

A certain species of hairless primates try to justify their existence in this universe. Good works, kind words and civility weren’t good enough. When they met another group of hairless primates who had better works and had done better deeds, they felt threatened. So they made that other group a nemesis.

Nemesis… now that’s a very powerful word. You could apply it to every facet of your life. It’s something that is the complete opposite, the mortal enemy, the one that you wouldn’t want to be, let alone aspire to surpass.

The sad fact is that every tribal group has a favourite nemesis. Yes, al-Quds: the Jews will always be someone’s nemesis mainly because nobody bothered to try to understand them. The Arabs are also seen as nemesis, as well as whites, Asians, Blacks, X-tian, Muslim… so on and so forth.

If you want to make a point, pro or con, I strongly suggest that you make yourself a little more readable. Therefore, you won’t look like a meth-addled idiot. It makes a lot of sense. It helps stimulate minds better. Plus, if you’re nice – and sensible – enough, you might get a reply from Debbie herself.

I don’t consider myself 100% pro-Debbie. I do take issues with some of her views, especially those involving the Great Opiate of the Masses, religion. But I have to admit, you’re not doing a good job in defending your faith – Islam is currently having as serious image problem as many of the people who post here know. And sadly, you’re making matters slightly worse by your ranting.

But that’s enough. Go to bed. Please. And thank you.

(At least I’m not telling you to SMBFMFD. I already told that to Charlie Sheen. At least in my blog.)

In defense of grandparents who are raising grandchildren: No, my daughter is not and never was a junkie. Her problems were developmental and she was taken advantage of despite my vigilance and best efforts to the contrary. Yes, I am getting older, but the child is now a well adjusted teenager who will be attending college in the fall. I never took any government money except the benefits when my husband died. There are sometimes extenuating circumstances where a parent cannot raise a child, and it is a blessing when a capable grandparent can step in. I thank G-d every day for this opportunity He gave me.

Watch sleazy talk shows. The girl would sleep with everyone she encounters because she is toooooo sexy. Then after sleeping around with ten people she screams and cries in a talk show to claim that a given man is the father of her child. The man says she was sleeping with every one else; my brothers , my friens and he does not any thing to do with her. You know the medicine to this; The first child gets welfare. The second child out of wedlock she gets nothing for him. The third child out of wedlock she loses the welfare for the first. Try this once and they keep their pants on. As long as get money for having babies they will F— like crazy. It is a good income.

what burns me more; is that this illigimate children will crowd my kids out of the labor marker because we have to be tolerant and non-prejudicial. They will tax our schools and their budgets because they they should be educated other wise they will grew up to be gangsters. And that will be the mistake of the people who did not enjoy any sex with their mothers. Oh These bigots

Deb, you are right on to tackle this issue. Keep at it. I am a single mother. Yes, I messed up and had a child out of wedlock. But yes, I learned my lesson the FIRST time around. For my son’s entire life I have worked very hard to provide for him without any assistance from the Fed or the state or from a deadbeat dad. I have seen first-hand how not having a man in the house has created a hole in my son’s life that I cannot fill, as I CANNOT be the mom and the dad like some idiots try to pretend. I can only be mom. However, I have made a point to protect what time I have at home to be with my son, not galavanting off on dates and trying to find someone to make me “whole”. My son has been raised in the church and in a home life that values the Bible and its principles in Christ (and yes, we have had the frank discussions about how his dad and I messed up). He has been taught to respect authority, even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with said authority (such as some teachers, but that is fodder for great home discussions). NOW I am seeing an incredible payoff from all of the hard work. My son just graduated from high school with honors, has completed college classes this summer and is attending a local college in the fall on two scholarships (academic and activity). He is very active in church, using his gifts, demonstrates humble leadership skills, and just last night was invited to a men’s campfire from the guys at church (mostly older men, and he had a blast). He has a bright future ahead of him, but it could have been a different story if I’d made the bad choices that some of these parents make. No, I don’t believe in forced sterilization (hello, you want to be compared to the Nazi’s commentors???) but facing and dealing with this issue is a start in changing the tide. Each successive generation in these situations is only going to cause the slide to increase. I’m tired of people trying to shove it under the carpet or getting in other’s faces and saying to stop “judging” them. It’s not judgment, it’s the stinking TRUTH (and the truth shall set you free). People it is time to stop making excuses, face the problem for what it is, and reach out a helping hand to these responsible grandparents in any way you are able.